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popthebutterfly 's review for:
Dead Inside: A True Story
by Cyndy Etler
Rating: 3/5
Genre: YA Memoir
Recommended Age: 16+ (language, abuse in many forms, sexual assault, drugs, running away, trigger warnings for rape and abuse)
I received a free copy of this book courtesy of KidLitExchange. All opinions are my own.
I never was a badass. Or a slut, a junkie, a stoner, like they told me I was. I was just a kid looking for something good, something that felt like love. I was a wannabe in a Levi's jean jacket. Anybody could see that. Except my mother. And the professionals at Straight.
From the outside, Straight Inc. was a drug rehab. But on the inside it was...well, it was something else.
All Cyndy wanted was to be loved and accepted. By age fourteen, she had escaped from her violent home, only to be reported as a runaway and sent to a "drug rehabilitation" facility that changed her world.
To the public, Straight Inc. was a place of recovery. But behind closed doors, the program used bizarre and intimidating methods to "treat" its patients. In her raw and fearless memoir, Cyndy Etler recounts her sixteen months in the living nightmare that Straight Inc. considered "healing." – Amazon.com
This was probably the hardest book I’ve had to read this year. This book follows the author as a young girl who does some stupid things to make up for her horrible home life. She’s sent to a rehabilitation center where things only go worse for her. I felt that while the story is told from the author’s POV that she did a very decent job with character descriptions and making the characters in this novel come alive (even though they all are/were, it helps to have a great description about them). The author also didn’t seem to spend a lot of time concentrating on non-important events and the plot was very clear in the novel.
However, I do feel like the writing was a bit weird for my personal tastes. The book jumped around a lot and sometimes flashed between past and present so weirdly and unexpectedly that it made me really confused while reading it. I also felt that the writing was a bit weird to understand in places as well. The book is wrote as if someone is talking to you, but that type of writing does not translate so well on paper most times.
Verdict: Overall, I thought the book was a frightening tale of one woman’s true experience and it would make for a very interesting read for anyone who is interested in memoirs. Personally though, I did not enjoy the book. I work in the criminal justice field and I felt very emotional during the majority of this book. I also had to reread sections of the book in order for it to make sense to me. I think this could be a great read for college students studying a number of subjects in the humanities field and it would be a good book for someone who enjoys memoirs. However, please be careful reading this book as it is a very serious and hard book to read because of what happens in the book.
Genre: YA Memoir
Recommended Age: 16+ (language, abuse in many forms, sexual assault, drugs, running away, trigger warnings for rape and abuse)
I received a free copy of this book courtesy of KidLitExchange. All opinions are my own.
I never was a badass. Or a slut, a junkie, a stoner, like they told me I was. I was just a kid looking for something good, something that felt like love. I was a wannabe in a Levi's jean jacket. Anybody could see that. Except my mother. And the professionals at Straight.
From the outside, Straight Inc. was a drug rehab. But on the inside it was...well, it was something else.
All Cyndy wanted was to be loved and accepted. By age fourteen, she had escaped from her violent home, only to be reported as a runaway and sent to a "drug rehabilitation" facility that changed her world.
To the public, Straight Inc. was a place of recovery. But behind closed doors, the program used bizarre and intimidating methods to "treat" its patients. In her raw and fearless memoir, Cyndy Etler recounts her sixteen months in the living nightmare that Straight Inc. considered "healing." – Amazon.com
This was probably the hardest book I’ve had to read this year. This book follows the author as a young girl who does some stupid things to make up for her horrible home life. She’s sent to a rehabilitation center where things only go worse for her. I felt that while the story is told from the author’s POV that she did a very decent job with character descriptions and making the characters in this novel come alive (even though they all are/were, it helps to have a great description about them). The author also didn’t seem to spend a lot of time concentrating on non-important events and the plot was very clear in the novel.
However, I do feel like the writing was a bit weird for my personal tastes. The book jumped around a lot and sometimes flashed between past and present so weirdly and unexpectedly that it made me really confused while reading it. I also felt that the writing was a bit weird to understand in places as well. The book is wrote as if someone is talking to you, but that type of writing does not translate so well on paper most times.
Verdict: Overall, I thought the book was a frightening tale of one woman’s true experience and it would make for a very interesting read for anyone who is interested in memoirs. Personally though, I did not enjoy the book. I work in the criminal justice field and I felt very emotional during the majority of this book. I also had to reread sections of the book in order for it to make sense to me. I think this could be a great read for college students studying a number of subjects in the humanities field and it would be a good book for someone who enjoys memoirs. However, please be careful reading this book as it is a very serious and hard book to read because of what happens in the book.